Quote

Everything in our lives has the potential to wake us up or put us to sleep. Allowing it to awaken us is up to us.

Pema Chodron

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Pema Chodron
Age: 88
Born: 1936
Born: July 14
Clergyman
Philosopher
Writer
New York City
New York
Deirdre Blomfield-Brow
Lives
Everything
Awaken
Allowing
Wake
Potential
Sleep

More quotes by Pema Chodron

Image
Ego is like a room of your own, a room with a view with the temperature and the smells and the music that you like. You want it your own way. You'd just like to have a little peace, you'd like to have a little happiness, you know, just gimme a break.
Pema Chodron
Image
That nothing is static or fixed, that all is fleeting and impermanent, is the first mark of existence. Everything is in process.
Pema Chodron
Image
The most important aspect of being on a spiritual path may be to just keep moving.
Pema Chodron
Image
So war and peace start in the human heart. Whether that heart is open or whether that heart closes has global implications.
Pema Chodron
Image
The approach is that the best way to use unwanted circumstances on the path of enlightenment is not to resist but to lean into them.
Pema Chodron
Image
We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don't really get solved. They come together and they fall apart.
Pema Chodron
Image
Compassionate action starts with seeing yourself when you start to make yourself right and when you start to make yourself wrong. At that point you could just contemplate the fact that there is a larger alternative to either of those, a more tender, shaky kind of place where you could live.
Pema Chodron
Image
If someone comes along and shoots an arrow into your heart, it's fruitless to stand there and yell at the person. It would be much better to turn your attention to the fact that there's an arrow in your heart.
Pema Chodron
Image
If you work with your mind, that will alleviate all the suffering that seems to come from the outside.
Pema Chodron
Image
My experience with forgiveness is that it sort of comes spontaneously at a certain point and to try to force it it's not really forgiveness. It's Buddhist philosophy or something spiritual jargon that you're trying to live up to but you're just using it against yourself as a reason why you're not okay.
Pema Chodron
Image
It isn't the things that are happening to us that cause us to suffer, it's what we say to ourselves about the things that are happening. The truth you believe and cling to makes you unavailable to hear anything new.
Pema Chodron
Image
If you aren't feeding the fire of anger or the fire of craving by talking to yourself, then the fire doesn't have anything to feed on.
Pema Chodron
Image
Are you experiencing restlessness? Stay! Are fear and loathing out of control? Stay! Aching knees and throbbing back? Stay! What's for lunch? Stay! I can't stand this another minute! Stay!
Pema Chodron
Image
To put it concisely, we suffer when we resist the noble and irrefutable truth of impermanence and death.
Pema Chodron
Image
Clarity and decisiveness come from the willingness to slow down, to listen to and look at what’s happening.
Pema Chodron
Image
The truth is that good and bad coexist sour and sweet coexist. They aren't really opposed to each other.
Pema Chodron
Image
Difficult people are the greatest teachers.
Pema Chodron
Image
Unconditional good heart toward others is not even a possibility unless we attend to our own demons.
Pema Chodron
Image
This very moment is the perfect teacher, and, lucky for us, it's with us wherever we go.
Pema Chodron
Image
All you need to know is that the future is wide open and you are about to create it by what you do.
Pema Chodron